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TBS CROSSFIRE - Next Generation Long Range R/C System

After almost 2 years of development, a good week or two of teasing and leaked reveals as well as a tonne of test-flights at the DroneNationals without hiccups, we're finally prepared to officially announce the TBS CROSSFIRE, the next generation of long range R/C system.

Check out the products on our website. You can also preorder via your favorite local TBS dealer!

A new era of connectivity
The TBS CROSSFIRE is a long range R/C link based on the newest RF technology, capable of self-healing two-way communications and range beyond comprehension. With a sensitivity of -130dB, full RF-side diveristy rather than just antenna-diversity, the features already implemented and the future upgrades to come make the TBS CROSSFIRE the only long range control link worthy of our times.

Remote control links, however, are tasked with much more than range. Telemetry, robustness against interference, connectivity with smart devices, ease of use and the overall finish are often overlooked to achieve the last bit of range. The end result is often strange behavior, lack of reliability, or simply things that were never envisioned and thus not possible. Let's kiss those days goodbye, and move on to a brighter future

Developed by Experts
Team BlackSheep has been notorious for long range records, close-to-ground proximity flying in the Alps and deep urban operations. During our numerous missions all around the globe we have gathered a list of requirements, and have found that no existing system can cover them all. So we set on a long and painful path to develop a RC link system entirely from scratch, put it through its paces for over a year to ensure top-notch reliability and state-of-the-art functionality.

Through the OLED Display on the transmitter, you can monitor the real-time location of your drone (TBS GPS or BlackBox with DJI Naza or APM-based GPS required). The up- and downlink status provide a feeling of safety, the configuration options through the OLED display do away with any PC-based configuration tools. The pulsing LED relays your link budget and link health in colorized form (green = keep going, orange = turn around). In case of a crash, the location of the drone is visible on the OLED as well. The built in battery on the receiver turns it into a beacon automatically - and it will continue to transmit its last known location until the battery runs out.

It Just Works
Apart from unparalelled maximum range, the thing that we are most proud about on the TBS CROSSFIRE is that it just works. In the past, our question always was "could our R/C link keep up?". Many missions were aborted, or lines weren't flown, due to premature failure of the R/C link. Once we switched to the CROSSFIRE, all of these problems were gone. As long as we had video, we had control. And when the video was gone, we still had control - and telemetry. With the TBS CROSSFIRE comes peace of mind.

VideosHere is a video of a range-test flight checking how susceptible the Crossfire is to interference. We took two known noisy components, one is the TBS CORE PNP PRO which has a super-strong DCDC converter. Another is the video transmitter. Crossfire power set to 25mW, goal was to reach 3km. We passed that without a single packet lost!

Release notes:

V1.57 2016-10-17 ( including versions from V1.53 to V1.57 )
Most important changes:
- added: Support for completely legal use for countries following FCC, C-Tick and ETSI
- added: Region selection ( open, FCC, C-Tick and CE/ETSI ). Selecting any beside open will
lock the system according to selected rules. Only allowed setting will be available
by OLED menu once the system is locked.
- added: Konami code to unlock the system once locked
( up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, enter, enter )
- added: Channel based spectrum analyzer for noise floor, LQ and SNR
- added: CRSF V2 support including telemetry and even lower latency between Open-TX and Crossfire
( requires Open-TX 2.2.x beta and lua script on SD card )
- added Selectable SBUS rate ( use 50Hz max for DJI FCs )
- added: Factory reset
- improved Better concept for dynamic power to avoid power ramping up fast if not required

V1.53 2016-09-20
- added: Support for completely legal use for countries following FCC, C-Tick and ETSI
- added: Region selection ( open, FCC, C-Tick and CE/ETSI ). Selecting any beside open will
lock the system according to selected rules. Only allowed setting will be available
by OLED menu once the system is locked.
- added: Konami code to unlock the system once locked
( up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, enter, enter )
- added: Channel based specturm analyzer for noise floor, LQ and SNR
- added: CRSF V2 support including telemetry and even lower latency between Open-TX and Crossfire
( requires Open-TX 2.2.x beta and lua script on SD card )
- added: Selectable SBUS rate ( use 50Hz max for DJI FCs )
- improved: Better concept for dynamic power to avoid power ramping up fast if not required

V1.40 2016.07.26 ( including versions from V1.20 to V1.39 )
Most important changes:
- added: New high bandwidth and ultra low latency RF profile
- added: Up to 150Hz update rate for RC signals
- added: Serial bridge and full MAVLink support
- added: MAVLink parser added, feeding forward relevant data to the TBS CORE PRO ( requires TBS CORE PRO firmware V1.38 or newer )
- added: MAVLink dynamic bandwidth control for incoming messages. This gives high update rate for forwarded messages to BST and make the frames fit the downlink avoiding buffer overflow and high latency
- added: RC over MAVLink support added ( RC_CHANNELS_OVERRIDE ). Can be enabled on RX settings.
- added: Forward RC frame to core pro for menu navigation by sticks ( only if no mixer active on remote )
- added: Bluetooth mode selectable by menu
- added: Crossfire 8ch Diversity receiver can now update TBS BLACKBOX and XF micro receiver over USB and BST
- added: Menu option do disable telemetry downlink( under RX settings )
- modified: Intelligent RF profile selection ( new and current RF profile ) optimizing for maximum bandwidth or long range
- added: Assume 100% LQ at 50Hz. Maximum refresh rate is 150Hz, so 300%. For better understanding of link quality relative to signal throughput.
- improved: CRC protection improved to make the system even more resistant against picking up invalid frames
- improved: Receiver reacts on button in press event if in find mode
- improved: New failsafe shortcut ( joystick short down to long up ) to avoid setting failsafe when remote is laying on the ground.
- fixed: Glitches or losing control of channel 5-8

More details below:
************************************************** ***************************
V1.39 2016.07.21
- added: Configure PX MAVLink stream for Crossfire ( no more extras file on SD for PX4 )
- added: Crossfire calculate used capacity for OSD as APM doesn't provide this information
- fixed: RC Failsafe message for tower app
- improved: Don't show downlink RSSI, SNR and LQ if telemetry is disabled
- improved: Receiver will wake up instantly and turn on green LED when pressing bind button in find mode. Receiver shutting down by button (press button for 3s) in find mode will be confirmed by blink code.
- improved: New failsafe shortcut ( joystick short down to long up ) to avoid setting failsafe when remote is laying on the ground.

- improved: CRC protection improved to make the system even more resistant against picking up invalid frames
- improved: Dynamic power mode hysterisis tuned. 2s delay added for reducing power level. Increase power level only on burst frame loss not on single frame lost
- improved: RX automatically binds to the transmitter after successful firmware update over the air if it wasn't bound before.
************************************************** ***************************

V1.09 2015-11-26
- added: Show signal strength bar on find mode page if no GPS is attached
- fixed: Uplink sync loss when downlink is lost ( huge range improvement on high power in very noisy environment )
- improved: More advanced CRC check to avoid wrong telemetry data
- improved: Split up telemetry data to increase throughput if link has low link quality
- improved: Dynamic power triggers changed to make it more stable even flying in a group of people
- improved: Re-sync time in force telemetry mode
- improved: Some small code improvements and fixes

I think the features speak for themselves, however if you still think it's too expensive for an UHF system (and it's not even more expensive than "other" systems), just think about what you'd have to spend on an extra telemetry module... probably around another 100 bucks if you look at the 3DR bluetooth modules which don't have as many features and less range. And they add even more weight.

So this thing really is - featurewise - the best bargain out there right now I'd say.